If We Treated Dogs This Way
"You hypocrites! Does not each of you on the sabbath untie his ox or his donkey from the manger, and lead it away to give it water? And ought not this woman, a daughter of Abraham whom Satan bound for eighteen long years, be set free from this bondage on the sabbath day?" When he said this, all his opponents were put to shame; and the entire crowd was rejoicing at all the wonderful things that he was doing.
Luke 13:10-17
August 12, 2025, Words By: Chris Hoke, Image By: Street Psalms
Made Flesh
I work with men in American prisons. Mostly gang-affected guys, often spoken about as savages, animals, less than human.
Our work at Underground Ministries is to empower communities to befriend and embrace precisely these neighbors of ours: men and women sacrificed to the criminal legal system who have been released from prison cages and are re-entering our communities.
So, while this story is about Jesus physically healing a woman in a public space, his choice of words — “untie,” “set free,” “bondage,” “eighteen long years” — speaks to me on another level.
A few years back, sitting in my little Honda with broken air conditioning on a hot summer day, one of the homies, Tristan, told me that he loved being able to roll the window down as he pleased.
“When I was in solitary,” he said, “for a few years locked up down in Texas, it would get hot as f— in our cells during the summer. No AC in there, and windows are all sealed up. Sometimes it got up past 120 degrees. One fool even died on our tier.”
I didn’t know what to say. Was that even possible?
Alex, who’d spent years locked up in Walla Walla, chimed in from the back seat.
“Not just in Texas, bro. Out in Eastern Washington, in the desert, it can get insane some weeks. I mean, if I leave my dog in my car on a hot day, outside WalMart, even for ten minutes, bro I can get fined or locked up. There’s laws against that in most states, I’m pretty sure. But there’s no laws against doing worse to human beings in prison.”
I looked it up. Alex was right.
Animal cruelty laws ensuring “cooling protection” for pets are actually most strict in the very states where prison units commonly (and legally) reach 110-130°F (43-54°C).
In fact, many states have a “right to rescue”: concerned passersby can legally break a car window in order to let an overheated animal out. I haven’t found a law that would allow me to break my friends out of those prisons doing eighteen long weeks in that heat.
Jesus gets this hypocrisy. Jesus embodies a God who has the view from below—a view that many of our incarcerated neighbors like Alex know well.
In this story, Jesus doesn’t just name that sense of imprisonment; he breaks a woman out of it.
What’s more, he’s ready for those who want to play legal games with him.
The real issue isn’t honoring the Sabbath, he argues. It’s not really about legal definitions of justice and safe communities. Instead, Jesus calls out our everyday sociopathies — those which accommodate our pets more than our neighbors.
By unlocking and healing this woman, right in front of the authorities, Jesus shows us who God is: compassionate, urgent to liberate.
Way too often, guys in jail Bible studies, or on collect calls from distant prisons, say to me: “You’re a pastor: God must have me in here for a reason, right?”
Folks of Jesus’ time and religion thought the same. If someone was sick, it was God’s doing; there must be a reason. Many pulpits still preach the same all-controlling Warden God today.
But in this story, who does Jesus say has bound this “daughter of Abraham” for “eighteen long years”? Not God. Jesus says the jailer is “Satan.” In Greek, “the accuser,” “the adversary.” It was a legal term back then: the prosecutor. For Jesus, the Warden is the antithesis of God.
This scripture goes on to say that some who heard Jesus’ words were “rejoicing.” In jail Bible studies, and in conversations with homies like Tristan and Alex, this is immediately good news. Those who’ve been locked up in America are thrilled to have their assumptions about God unbound.
But for many of us raised on Law & Order liturgies, we can feel “put to shame” by this view of God. We still need Jesus’ healing work and words to unlock our deepest imaginations; even we “rule-followers” need to be liberated from seeing God as a prison Warden.
Dwelling Among Us
Who are the members of your community that are routinely assumed to be less precious than pets or livestock? Even if it’s not explicit, what language, habits or “common sense” reveal the community’s values?
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